Thanks so much to all of you who have filled in your BackerKit surveys!

We will be locking down the surveys on WEDNESDAY, so if you want to add books or buy French or Spanish language books, the time is now.

IF you have entered your address into your BackerKit survey by Wednesday night, as most of you have - good job! - your books will be shipping in TWO WEEKS!

::Kermit the Frog yaaaay dance::

(NOTE: We got a message saying that one person found all the reminders in their spam folder. Have you not seen a survey yet? Check your spam folder for your survey so you can receive your items!)

Also, you are all invited to our gala launch, at 3pm onSunday 17 September at Glad Day Bookshop. We'll be featuring drag queen story hour starring the magical Fay Slift and Fluffy Souffle, with special musical guests and amazing artworks. Flyer appears below, please feel free to invite all your friends! Also, if you ordered the Toronto Pickup Special, that will be your opportunity to collect your book sets (if you can't make it, you'll have until Sept 30th to pick them up there).

Thank you, fabulous humans. We're so excited to send you these delightful books! Also, stay tuned for your musical samplers and coloring pages in the next few weeks as well.

Happy Pride! I am aware that not all municipalities celebrated Pride this past weekend, but in the spirit of Stonewall I want to wish you all a happy Pride. I hope that your sunburns are already starting to heal and your voices are already starting to return.

In The Mosque Garden, written by El-Farouk Khaki and Troy Jackson, illustrated by Katie Commodore

We have been very busy here at Flamingo Global Headquarters through the spring, working on six beautiful new books for you. While I’m very sorry that they weren’t ready when we imagined they would be, the finished items are going to be worth the wait. Interspersed I’m including some character sketches and even a few colored pages to whet your appetites for the finished products, which I am VERY pleased to say, will be shipping out during the first week of September. Artists are painting and drawing furiously in anticipation and we have printing press time booked.

a page from The Last Place You Look, by j wallace skelton, illustrated by Melisse Watson

I want to take this opportunity to thank you all so much for your patience with this process. Without going into too much detail, I just want to say that sometimes the reality of queer and trans people’s lives - and therefore their capacity to complete work - can be particularly susceptible to disruption. We have been sorry indeed to make you wait, but glad and proud to be able to support our creators.

In the beginning of July you will all receive an email from BackerKit, which will allow you to fill in your address for shipping. Two notes about these BackerKit emails:

You may use them to purchase any add-ons you may desire, like French-language or Spanish-language books (!), extra sets or previous year's sets.

Bell's Knock-Knock Birthday, written and illustrated by Sam Orchard and George Parker

You MUST fill these out in order to receive any physical rewards that may be due to you. We have no access to the address you would have used to authorize your payment method. We’ve learned that people frequently imagine they only need to fill out the address collection email if their address has changed. In fact, everybody everybody everybody needs to fill it out in order to be shipped their books.

Rachel's Christmas Boat, written and illustrated by Sophie Labelle

Thank you for taking this fabulous flamingo ride with us. We are all looking forward to showing off the finished goods very soon.

love,

S. Bear Bergman

Flamingo in Chief

Presenting....our 2017 season!

THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK. Written by j wallace skelton, illustrated by Melisse Watson

47,000 BEADS. Written by Angel and Koja Adeyoha, illustrated by Holly McGillis.

SUPER POWER BABY SHOWER. Written by Tobi Hill-Meyer and Fay Onyx, illustrated by Janine Carrington.

BELL’S KNOCK-KNOCK BIRTHDAY. Written and illustrated by Sam Orchard and George Parker.

IN THE MOSQUE GARDEN*. Written by El-Farouk Khaki and Troy Jackson, illustrated by Katie Commodore.

RACHEL’S CHRISTMAS BOAT. Written and illustrated by Sophie Labelle.

*tentative title

character sketch from Super Power Baby Shower, by Tobi Hill-Meyer and Fay Onyx, illustrated by Janine Carrington

Things are VERY EXCITING here at Flamingo Rampant headquarters. All stories are in the 2nd draft stage or later, illustrators are sketching and coloring - fourteen authors and illustrators in three countries and five time zones are hard at work making your beautiful new books. They feature dragons and snow cats and service dogs and wolves, gay dads and lesbian grandmas and trans parents and two-spirit kids and chosen families, a luxurious mosque's garden and a tiny city apartment crammed with people. We have authors and illustrators working in teams and pairs, putting their heads (and their great big queer hearts) together to make new stories come to life. For the first time ever, EVERY book has at least one trans or non-binary person working on it, and we have eight contributors working on their very first children's book project. AND, despite not reaching our stretch goal, we are going to go ahead and produce one book in French and one book in Spanish (you'll be able to add to your order when the time comes, if you'd like). Translators are diligently making new poems and considering gender-nonspecific endings in Romance languages as we type. It's an exciting time!

It's also a bit slow going. One of our projects lost its illustrator - for a great reason (and we are SO excited about the person who just agreed to pick up that project), but it set us back at least six weeks in the process since all the books go to be printed at the same time (with their friends. It's nicer that way). We also took extra time with some of the authors, who had imagined beautiful stories but needed some patience as they learned about children's-book making. One of our values here at Flamingo Rampant is in supporting new talent and giving people their first gig in a system that tends to reward MFAs and owning your own expensive design software more than talent and vision, so we feel great about all of that....except for the delays. At the moment, this project is probably 8-10 weeks behind schedule, and it may even take longer. I'm very sorry for that, and yet we all feel sure that the end products will be worth the extra wait.

In the next two weeks, once everyone's a little further along, we'll be sending you some images and pages to peek in at, so you can see how your books are coming along. Thanks so much for your patience and your faith in us as we make you these lovely, and loving, new books.